12 Years Ago

“Alaiz! What are you doing? It’s dangerous to sit near the window!”, gasped a woman in her thirties, almost dropping the big basket full of fresh baked breads that she was carrying. She hurried to the little boy’s place, going up the stairs that was located near a big window where the boy sit and gazing outside.

“There’s a big smoke over there mom. It started a few minutes ago”, he pointed to a big grey smoke from one of the buildings about 1 mile away towering to the sky. He just sat calmly, gazing as if a lot of things are crossing his little mind.

“Oh my God, it must be the oil store on the central street…” shock, fear and desperate were all there in her face. Her hands covered her blue eyes along with her sighed before she took Alaiz’s hand in a hurry and dragged him down the big stairs. It was quite a big house with nice furnishings, but certainly old. The paint was fading away and the big living room was simple, very humble for the size.

“Mom, why do they hate us?”, asked the little boy slowly. His mother stopped, she looked at her young son’s blue eyes, and sighed. She went down and hugged him, when she finally released her hug, she tried to say something but nothing came out from her mouth. “Did we do some kind of crimes?”

“No, dear, no, we didn’t do any crimes”, replied her helplessly.
“Then why do they want to harm us?”
The woman sighed again and again, cannot find any words to reply her son’s questions.

There had been news on the street saying that the country was in a bad economical condition. The food prices had gone up steadily, small riots appeared sporadically throughout the country, and now, things had gone to the worst. Alaiz hadn’t gone to school for days now and none of the people had gone out from their home either. Everyone hid in their homes, full with fears.

“Is it a crime to have blue eyes?” he asked again.
When his mother just about to reply, they heard a lot of shouting and swearing from the street, coming near.

“Alaiz, listen to me. You have to hide.” She said with determinations shone from her eyes. “I’ve made these breads for you, hide them with you, you could survive with these for days. If those brown-eyed people broke in, all you must do is hide. Don’t cry, don’t make any sound. No matter what happen, no matter what you heard, don’t come out from you hiding, don’t even try to find me or dad. You hear me? You must stay silent!” Drops of water already on her blue eyes. She hugged him tight and whisper “you must survive”.